While current communications networks provide the ability to easily communicate to people all over the world, the content of a communication is only effective when it is provided in a language that is understandable to those involved in the communication. A website providing content in English, for instance, may not be very useful to a non-English speaking person. Generally in such situations, content in one language often must be translated to another language to be effective. An entity wishing to expand operations of an electronic commerce website into another country, for example, may need to translate all or at least a portion of the website into the country's local language. Similarly, an entity wishing to provide services to populations who do not communicate well in a primary language of a geographic area must translate much of the content that it distributes, whether electronically or otherwise. Complicating this issue is the fact that content is often generated at a high rate, especially when content providers give users the opportunity to provide their own content.
Partly due to the need to translate content and the amount of content to be translated, automated translation tools have developed. However, because of the complexity of language, cultural differences in how people express themselves, various incongruent grammatical structures, and other factors, the quality of content translated by these automated translation tools is not optimal. The meaning of a word, for instance, may change dramatically based on the context in which the word is used. The word “flash,” for example can refer to a burst of radiant energy, an illumination device of a camera, a brief moment in time, a type of computer memory, or other things depending on how the word is used. In another language, a single word may not have the same multiple meanings. Automated translation tools have had limited success ascertaining the correct meaning of a word when translating. Thus, automated translation tools often provide content that is difficult to understand or simply not elegantly composed. While manual translation by a qualified translator may address these issues, manual translation is often time consuming and prohibitively expensive for many uses when translation would be beneficial.